Pet Peeves

Yeah, we all have them - including me. One of my biggest pet peeves is parents who expect television networks, filmmakers and game developers to take over the task of the parent.

Okay, some of you will slam me for that statement but I stand by it. I read an article recently where a woman was slamming a video game for it's content. She didn't want her child seeing what was in it and blamed the developer for producing content that was unacceptable.

One game came out a while back that had sex in it. Well, you got a chance to see a butt crack and the side of a breast IF you spent about 30 hours going through the game and building the relationship to the point the characters wanted to have sex. And it was some vanilla stuff - sort of a pseudo sex scene.

But boy did some parents bitch! They wanted the game developer to eliminate that content because they Did Not Want Their Child To See It!

Helloooooooo! First of all, 30 hours of killing versus 30 seconds of almost sex? Where's the balance here? And when did slicing people to ribbons, stealing cars and blowing the world all to hell become acceptable while sex is something horrid? "Now, listen little Tommy, watching people getting gutted, blowing off opponents heads and bombing cities is just fine - but for goodness sakes, stay away from sex because sex is baaaaaad!"

WTF?

But hey, if that's your opinion that's fine. Opinions are like elbows and assholes - everyone has one. It's good to have an opinion. But act like adults here. If you don't want your child to see something, don't make it available.

It's not like there's a squad out there, holding guns to parents' heads to FORCE them to buy the games for their kids?? I don't know about the rest of you, but when my children were growing up, if there was something I didn't want them to see or do I employed that magical technique and said "NO". Amazing how well it works.

So what's changed? Saying no is easy. For goodness sake - it's a one syllable word! And saying no doesn't scar a kid for life. In fact, it's rather good for them. Let's face it, in life we get told no a lot. We experience some disappointment and move on.

And hey, selfishly, I don't like people messing with game developers. There's some major talent at work here people. Have you watched an intro for a game like Gears or Modern Warfare or Left 4 Dead? There's some amazing animation and graphics there!

Not to mention a lot of fun gaming hours:)

Okay, rant over. One more cup of coffee and I'm going to kill some Zombie. Yes, kill. After all, they ARE Zombies and we don't want them infecting our world.

For those of you who haven't seen the trailer for Left 4 Dead 2, here's a peek. Now this is some quality animation!


Happy Sunday!